Snippets
by lynnxlady
Summary: Unrelated short!fic (under 1000 words). Various pairings (canon and no), various characters. Het, yuri, platonic.
1. Sesshoumaru and Rin

SessRin (platonic) – 251 words

The sky is indigo darkening with heavy clouds. "Ick, a storm," Rin says, burrowing into his side like she belongs there, which she doesn't. "Rin doesn't like rain."

He still doesn't understand why she likes to touch, to loop her arms around his neck, to snuggle her head into his shoulders, to sleep all curled up against his side, to stick to him like a grinning burr when she can get away with it. She rarely can; he's made sure of that. "It isn't raining yet," he points out.

"I know," she says, shrugging. Her fingers find the pelt thrown over his shoulder—she's rather fond of it, and lips flattened into a stern line, he detaches her from it.

Lately, he's begun to wonders how old she is, and then how long humans live when they aren't messily slaughtered by youkai. He's never bothered to find out. Although he doubts she knows, he asks her the second question.

Her face goes very serious and she holds out her hands, fingers ticking off fingers, counting on each other, to five, past ten, and onto twenty. "Rin's mother wasn't more than that," she says. "Some live longer? There were old people in the village. But youkai killed them…" Fiercely, she shakes her head as if to clear it, nearly biting her lip. "But that won't happen," she adds, like it's an unchangeable fact, and she _looks_ at him, eyes wide and warm.

The air smells of lightning-to-come, and he cannot look away.


	2. First Frost, NarakuKagome

Naraku/Kagome. 269 words.

He thought that if he just picked at the right one, she'd come apart at the seams, but she hasn't yet and he isn't sure if she has any seams left to pull.

"And here we are," he says. Flat on her belly, she stares up at him through bloodshot eyes, ends of her hair floating in the water runoff pooling beneath her. With fingers worn raw from her bowstring, she clings to the last of her arrows, and as he approaches her, her jaw tightens angrily.

Her breath is ragged and in time with the thud of his (Onigumo's) heart. He admires absently someone or another's—perhaps hers, but he likes to think it's one of her comrades'—lifeblood splattered scarlet on her ashen face. The cold ground fairly burns under the heat of her blood. Savagely, she heaves herself to her feet, totters, and catches herself on her hands and knees as she tumbles forward. "Yes," she says. "Here. I'm going to kill you."

"Not here," he says. His tone is almost gentle; her body goes taut with hate when he uses it.

Groaning, she shoves herself to her feet, her mouth shaping one-last-time-one-last-time wordlessly, furiously. The arrow glows, priestess-bright, and she falls into him, arm hooking around his back and hand finding the spider-scar. Her fingers trail over it almost like a lover might. "Here," she shouts against the hollow of his throat, and only then does he realizes that while her arrow just scratched over his (Onigumo's) heart, her priestess power is wriggling beneath his breastbone.

He discovers that purified miasma smells of frost.


	3. Turning to the Dead Time, KikyouKagome

Kikyou/Kagome. 311 words.

To Kagome, the world is colored in autumn, cool and crisp and vivid, and turning to the dead time. She shivers and wraps her arms around herself tightly. Kikyou is water standing still, eternity frozen for a moment, and Kagome wants to hold her in her hands.

The cold creeps under her skin when Kikyou touches her, icy fingers on the curve of her cheekbone, and she imagines them at the hollow of her throat and the crest of her thighs. She blushes, so hot, her world full of ambers and reds, fire and blood, and Kikyou's hand hovers on her face a moment longer.

Her mouth is open for a dozen words, but then she shuts it, because in silence, she is somehow other than herself. So she can bring her mouth against Kikyou's, lips shut tightly so that it could be platonic if she wants to pretend later.

Kikyou tastes like winter tastes, like the nothing left after the snowflakes melt on her tongue.

She's so pretty, Kagome thinks, pulling away. So pretty. It should be arrogant, because Kikyou should be the face in the mirror, but instead Kagome feels like the girl in the mirror; she's the reflection and Kikyou can make her go away if she doesn't like her.

Kikyou just watches her, distant and untouchable, and oh, Kagome wants to touch her. "It smells like a funeral," Kikyou says to her, and Kagome inhales so deeply she begins to cough, strangling on the burning scent of the air, but that's okay. It ought to twist in her chest like this.  
"It is one," she chokes out, face contorting. "Everyone's. Yours. Mine."

She wishes she could go back and change things around, so that Kikyou could've liked her; right now, she wants Kikyou to like her. She knows she could've loved her.

"Hush," Kikyou says, almost tenderly.


	4. Bittersweet, InuyashaKagome

Inuyasha/Kagome.

-

She sits at the edge of the well, feet dangling over. A gust of wind flits through her hair, sending it rushing into her face and she laughs a little. His ears prick at that. It's a pretty laugh, light and happy and everything Kikyou couldn't be. It's the ultimate cheat that he could be, if he grabs it in hand, and fuck, it _hurts_ that he can have it all when she couldn't.

She's waiting, a second chance in a torn school uniform and socks that sag down around her ankles, and steeling himself because it will always hurt, he goes to take that chance.


End file.
